


Mirrors

by starlies



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Childhood Friends, Friends to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-13
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2018-09-17 04:15:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 18,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9303746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlies/pseuds/starlies
Summary: Chrom and Robin are princes from separate nations who, despite the political divide between them, are childhood friends. They've promised to each other that, if neither of them is married by the time they reach forty, they'll simply marry each other.But Robin suddenly loses all his memories. It then falls on Chrom the task of rebuilding their relationship, reconvincing Robin of the love he has forgotten.





	1. windows into the soul

**Author's Note:**

> Hello ~ I've had this idea in my head for a while now, and I'm finally working on it! It will get more romantic as I progress the story... I promise!!! Chrobin is literally... my everything... ugh... and I have no idea how long this will be lol
> 
> (the summary goes a little ahead of the first chapter, fair warning)

Ten years ago, they met for the first time. A chance encounter, perhaps, but the bond that resulted from it caused Chrom to question whether or not their meeting was truly outside destiny.

Emmeryn was busy meeting with the newly-crowned king of Plegia, the man taking the throne in wake of King Gangrel’s passing. She didn’t expect Chrom to join her. He didn’t want to. So the young prince found himself outside in the courtyard, hoping to find _some_ way to occupy himself until Fredrick came back from his parents’ house. Surprisingly, he found that he wasn’t alone.

It was a memory Chrom kept tucked away in his heart at all times: the image of a young boy with hair the color of fallen stars and eyes the color of desert sand, wandering by himself in the pale sunlight of the castle garden. He let his fingers brush against the hedges and rose bushes as he meandered through them, pausing every so often to examine each blossom he passed with his fingertips. Peculiar. For someone close in age to Chrom, he appeared to take notice of the finer details of his world.  

“What are you doing?”

The boy looked up quickly – almost fearfully – at Chrom’s voice.

“You aren’t doing anything wrong,” he told Robin, walking forward to meet him beside the yellow roses. But his lips remained parted in surprise. Did he really think he was in trouble?

“…I’m sorry.” The tone of his voice was quiet, but not a whisper – Chrom still caught the Plegian accent on his tongue. It complemented his clearly foreign clothes, a set of thin black robes that were uncommon to Ylisse.

His tawny eyes shifted to look at the ground, then back up at Chrom, caught between politeness and bashfulness. “I was startled when you spoke… I thought I was alone.”

Chrom presented his hand. “That’s okay. You’re Robin, right? My older sister told me that the king was bringing his son with him – I’m Chrom, by the way.”

With a thin smile and a mellow gaze, he shook his hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Chrom,” he replied.

“You’d rather be outside than in their meeting too, hm?”

Robin opened his mouth, then closed it again. “I haven’t thought about it too much,” he explained. “My father told me I had no business in royal affairs yet, at least not like him. He always says there’s something greater in store for me than the crown.”

“That sounds… beautiful.” Chrom chuckled and sat cross-legged in the grass, motioning for Robin to join him. He did. “I guess it’s kind of like what’s between me and Emmeryn, but she doesn’t have to tell me. I probably won’t become Exalt. But I want to do something good.”

“Like what?”

“Like… I could be the commander of her army!” And he probably would, with the holy blade Falchion choosing him as a wielder. “I’m learning swordplay right now with my friend Frederick. It’s really fun!”

Robin smirked at his enthusiasm. “I feel like that suits you, somehow.”

“Really? We just met! What makes you think that?”

“I…” There was a distant look in Robin’s eyes, as if he could see beyond the sky – beyond Naga – and into the heart of the universe. “Something about it feels… familiar, somehow. Oh! I hope that doesn’t sound mystic. It’s just… déjà vu, I think.”

“Déjà vu?”

“It’s a foreign phrase. It means ‘already seen.’”

“Ohhhh, like visions of the future? Emmeryn told me that Plegia has a lot of good sorcerers.”

“I’m not a sorcerer,” Robin quipped, spreading glove-covered fingers through the soft carpet of grass beneath them. “What I’d like to be is a tactician.”

The way he proclaimed that, with a whisper of pride beneath his words, told Chrom that he’d put a lot of thought into it. “What do you want to do as a tactician?”

“The same as you as a commander. ‘Something good.’”

“Haha, you’ve got me there.”

Robin smiled in return. “A commander and a tactician… we would make an excellent team, wouldn’t we?”

“Yeah! Like friends.”

“Friends?” A blush crossed his cheeks. “That’s…”

“That’s what?”

“I’d like that. To be friends with you, Chrom.”

And at the time, Chrom laughed at how formal Robin was about proposing their friendship. But somehow, it felt natural. The way Robin relaxed through their conversation, leaning back and smiling as if he’d known him for years… they could be good friends. Comrades, even – the political lines between them didn’t matter to him at all.

So they grew closer over the years – nearly inseparable, as Emmeryn noted the most recent summer that Robin spent in Ylissitol.

Ten years later, in the May before Robin was to visit Ylisse again, Chrom reinforced her remark.

The envoy he sent to inquire about the Plegian prince’s arrival returned with a vague response: Prince Robin fell ill, and would not be making the trek eastward. So Chrom wasted no time in preparing his own journey to Plegia. Unlike his friend, he wasn’t learned in the art of diplomacy, nor patience. Just like that, he asked Frederick and Sumia to accompany him, wished his sisters well, and was off.

They arrived mere hours before nightfall a week after departure. Sumia acted as their envoy, flying two days ahead to inform King Validar that Prince Chrom would be arriving to inquire about Prince Robin’s health.

“The King is allowing us to visit Robin,” she told the knight and prince when they reached the gates of Castle Plegia.

She accompanied them as they walked to the castle itself, through a stone-paved courtyard dusted with a fine layer of sand. It ground beneath Chrom’s boots with every step, and could tell by the pained expression on Frederick’s face that he had half a mind to pull a broom out of his pocket and sweep it clean. He held back a laugh. “Will they be extending any further hospitality to us?” he asked. “I haven’t many dealings with King Validar before, only Robin.”

“Yes! He said that Prince Chrom and his retainers could stay in the castle.”

“But for how long?” the other knight asked, his eyes still scanning the floor.

“He didn’t specify…”

“For as long as needed.”

Chrom stopped walking, addressing Frederick and Sumia with a hand resting on Falchion’s hilt.

“I came to see my friend’s recovery,” he said. “If Robin is still in pain, if he is ill… I will not leave his side.”

Frederick sighed through his nose. “May I ask, milord, how you intend to heal your friend? Plegia has clerics, I’m sure. And I’m afraid Lissa and Maribelle were left in Ylisse.”

“My coming to his side isn’t about being his nurse. It’s about being his friend.” Because there was something about his bond he couldn’t explain, an odd feeling in his core that tugged him halfway across the continent when he learned of Robin’s illness.

The knight’s response was a thin, understanding smile. “Very well, then.”

Dark-robed servants greeted them when they entered the palace. While Sumia took Frederick to the lodgings the king had provided for them, Chrom asked to be led to the prince’s quarters. They whispered his name anxiously at the request to meet with him, but nonetheless let Chrom follow them through winding stone hallways and up a staircase to a chamber in the cleric’s – not the royal – wing of the castle.

Chrom was cautious in opening the door, the only sound in the vicinity being the twisting of the knob in his hand. Finally, he swung it open, revealing a plain but well-furnished room, outfitted with a cabinet for medicines, a drawer of tools, several chairs, a table, and a four-poster bed. The window on the far wall was left open, but not a breeze wafted in from the unforgiving Plegian desert. It probably helped at least a little bit with the stuffiness, he assumed. Especially for the convalescing young man sound asleep in the bed.

Robin.

He laid calmly in the bed beneath the gauzy white curtains of the bed. Only his head of feathery, light-colored hair was visible from under the sheets. White on white on white – it reminded Chrom of snow, though no such thing could reasonably exist in Plegia.

He chuckled under his breath as he pulled a chair up to the bedside, waiting to see if the prince would wake. Robin never saw snow. Summer in Ylisse was mild, and he always returned to Plegia when the leaves began to shift color. Next winter, he supposed, he would invite Robin to spend the winter holiday in Ylissitol. He was well versed in coming up with diplomatic excuses to spend the summer with Chrom, so winter shouldn’t be any different – but at the end of the day, it didn’t matter what lies Robin had to tell his father to go to Ylisse. It mattered that they were together.

He stirred slightly, delicately, in his sleep. As if in a dream.

Chrom carefully reached his hand out to brush Robin’s hair. “Taking a nap when you have company over…” he mused, a smile blooming on his lips. “What are you dreaming of?”

And Robin stirred again at Chrom’s words. This time, however, he opened his eyes.

Chrom exhaled. “Ah, Robin. Sorry to wake you. Are you well? I have to say, I was worried when the messenger told us you were ill – something just didn’t feel right. Did you know I was coming?”

He turned his neck to face Chrom, tawny eyes widening as he shook off sleep’s grasp.

“Robin…?”

“I’m sorry…” the prince mumbled. “I’m afraid I haven’t met you before.”


	2. lady of the void

He felt nothing.

Everything was numb, nothing was real, there was no pain and no joy and no anything, just blank. White. The void that opened in that moment of incomprehension consumed him, and there was no way for him to find a way out.

Chrom swallowed.

_He didn’t remember him._

No, perhaps he was joking… but Robin wasn’t the type to joke. Not like that. Not now.

“Robin…” His voice trembled. Gods, only Robin could scare him like that. “Do you not remember? We’ve known each other ever since we were young… we’ve spent every summer together since then with each other…”

The prince only shook his head. “No. I’m sorry, Chrom, I… I have no idea what you are speaking of.”

A silence. And an understanding.

“My name.”

“Excuse me?”

“You know my name. How is that, if you don’t recall who I am?”

“I don’t know…” Robin pulled himself up to sit against the headboard. He pressed his fingers against his lips, pensiveness written in tan eyes – as if touching where Chrom’s name had been would make sense of the situation for him. “It just… I just knew it.”

And that was when Chrom noticed his hands.

He hadn’t thought much of it before, but he’d never seen Robin without a pair of black gloves on. Ever. Now he finally caught a glimpse of his friend’s bare hands and saw that traced on his clear olive skin was an odd mark. It was like nothing he had ever seen before, a different kind of birthmark from the one that blessed his right shoulder. The color of the brand was dark violet – near black – as if it was bruised into his skin. It was perfectly symmetric, a pattern of six eyes, three on each side, laced together in a V-shape. Like wings unfurling in flight.

In the brief moment before Robin hid his hands beneath the sheets again, Chrom swore the eyes stared back at him.

“Your hands… I never saw that you were branded, too.”

“Lord Robin’s branding means a great deal more than your own, servant of Naga.”

He turned to see a woman with coffee-colored skin and ink-black hair enter the room. She walked to where Chrom sat with Robin, her gait marked by striking hips and snake-like motion.

Robin gave her a tense smile. “Good evening, Tharja. This is… Chrom. He came for a visit.”

The man couldn’t even remember who Chrom was, and he was still saving his ass.

“I know that,” she said, looking down her sharp nose at the Ylissian prince. “The King told me we would be having… _foreign_ visitors, royal at that.”

Chrom rose in an attempt at courtesy. “I apologize for my intrusion, Lady Tharja.”

She smirked. “You truly are blessed. The Captain of the Guard had me promise to not curse you.”

Oh.

“I’m sorry…”

Tharja glared at him with eyes like black holes beneath her sheet of dark bangs. “Please leave me with my fiancé, _your majesty_. The staff is expecting you in your own quarters.”

The way she addressed him – with pointed words and an icy stare and a sinister aura – burned at Chrom’s skin, as if she cast a fire spell. It unsettled him. He felt… nauseous, as if being around the woman any longer would cause him to vomit.

Whatever light feeling seeing Robin gave him was gone. Snuffed out as if it never existed.

Chrom took his leave without a farewell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tharja is here ~ I'm characterizing her different from the canon on purpose, because in this story... there's some situational factors that alter her motivations. Slightly. tldr sorry she'd kinda evil


	3. the promise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm starting classes again ;; (why do i always start working on a long fic at the beginning of a semester? lol) so if you're keeping track of updates... i might disappear for times on end but! i will try my best to work on this regularly! my goal is always a chapter a week at least SO. we'll see how that goes.

_Tharja._

Her name rolled off the lips but tasted bitter on the tongue, like the harsh Plegian sand she was born out of.

Chrom stared up at the ceiling from the bed, laying on his back without so much as a sheet – only his underclothes. The summer heat was unbearable, and if he didn’t have the ounce of modesty Emmeryn hammered into him, he’d be naked.

_Tharja._

_Robin._

_Fiancé._

The thoughts cycled over and over in Chrom’s mind until he thought he’d be sick. Tharja. Robin. Tharja and Robin, engaged. Robin engaged. Robin getting married. Robin engaged and getting married to Tharja, _Tharja_ , the creepy enigmatic woman Chrom had never met before that evening, who made him want to throw up when he saw her.

It wasn’t supposed to be like that.

No.

Not Tharja.

They made a promise to each other, last summer, that it wouldn’t be Tharja – in a way.

He recalled the memory easily. It was one of those pleasant, mild August days, the kind where lazy breezes rolled along the meadows and townsfolk let their laundry out to dry and fat cotton clouds stuck to the sky. Chrom decided it was a good day to run patrols with the Shepherds, and asked Robin to join him. He agreed.

And so the two of them went out, out of the city and into the surrounding green fields. Robin rode beside him on a chocolate brown mare. His skin was a similar tone in the sunlight, warm and brown against his pale hair. Though he was Plegian, when Chrom saw him like that… he fit so naturally in Ylisse, in his eyes. And it reminded him that he never wanted Robin to leave as he always did when September came.

“Chrom, have you thought of marriage much?” Robin asked, catching his friend off guard.

Chrom laughed. “Even Emmeryn hasn’t married yet, and she’s the exalt. Why did you bring that up all of a sudden?”

“It’s been on my mind recently. My father mentioned it to me not long ago: the prospect of my marriage.”

“Are you looking forward to it?”

“Marrying? Not in particular. When Father spoke to me of it, I got the impression he expects me to wed a lady of the court, for image’s sake.” Robin let out a sigh. “But if love comes… I look forward to that.”

“Really?” A prince who valued a marriage of love over politics or status – Robin was a rare breed in that sense. He thought in the same manner as Chrom.

Though admittedly, there was a certain strategic aspect to Robin’s mentality that Chrom couldn’t match. He saw it dance in his eyes as he squinted through the afternoon light, looking ahead to the hamlet they approached. “If I have to marry for the sake of a political move, so be it. But to marry someone I love… we would both be happier in the end.”

“’Both happier’… what if you never marry?”

“Hah, I’ve yet to think that far ahead, Chrom.”

“I mean, by forty, they call you an _old maid_. And that title doesn’t suit you.” Nor did it suit Emmeryn, but he heard the term more and more often around the castle as she approached thirty.

Robin chuckled softly at him. “If I don’t marry by the time I’m forty, then perhaps I should just marry you.”

“That’s…!”

“Do you think it’s a bad idea?”

“No!” A blush heated Chrom’s face, and he turned his head so Robin wouldn’t see. “I mean… we’re best friends, Robin. It might be odd.”

“Consider it, Chrom: if we marry each other, neither of us is labeled for remaining unwed. It would be a political move in favor of our respective nations. And we get along well, so it wouldn’t be as impersonal at the marriage of convenience.”

He exhaled, breathing a bit too heavily for a sigh. “…So, forty?”

“Forty. That’s what you said, isn’t it? That by forty, people who aren’t married turn into old maids?”

There was a certain playfulness to Robin’s tone that told Chrom he didn’t expect to go that long before falling in love. And yet when he thought about it… it wouldn’t be bad, marrying his best friend. He would be guaranteed happiness. _They_ would be guaranteed happiness.

So Chrom laughed, his normal hearty chuckle, to shake off his embarrassment and agree with Robin. “It’s a deal, then: if we’re both bachelors and forty, we’ll marry each other.”

So they promised. The last promise they made to each other, besides that of Robin’s return the following June, before he lost all of his recollections.

Robin forgot their promise, Robin forgot Chrom. Robin met Tharja.

Robin was getting married to Tharja. Not Chrom.

Not that he was ever going to marry Chrom for certain, anyway…

But did Robin love Tharja?

It was too murky to Chrom, thinking back on what little, foul-tasting experience he’d had with the prince’s bride-to-be. Was there love between them? Robin never mentioned courting a woman by her name – Chrom was sure he would have heard. He trusted Robin. He would have written him something, at least an _“it looks like I’ll be married before the age of forty”_ or a _“remember that silly deal we made last summer?”_ or an _“I’ve fallen in love with someone.”_ Not silence. Their friendship was not silence.

But if Robin forgot it all… it wasn’t Robin’s fault, really. It was whatever illness caused his amnesia.

All Chrom could do, it seemed, was get Robin to remember.

Robin had to remember him, his best friend. He had to remember the summers in Ylisse. He had to remember the promise they made that one day, in the lush fields of the eastern plains beneath an infinite blue sky.

He had to remember their promise, because Chrom wanted to call it off.

He didn’t want to wait until he was forty to marry Robin.

He’d much rather marry Robin as soon as he could, before the sorceress Tharja stole him away. Because somewhere in between their summertime adventures and that last friendly promise, Chrom had fallen in love with his best friend.


	4. fragility

Validar was, when Chrom considered it, more similar to Tharja than his son Robin. He had a dark, gaunt face and suspicious eyes, the kind that cast disapproval on most all the world with sharp, downward glances. It gave him the same feeling the sorceress did. The king, however, had a certain grim regency to his presence, which made speaking to him all the more tolerable than Tharja breathing down his neck to _mind his place in a foreign palace_ as he passed her en route to the throne room.

He looked down at Chrom and his knights from the black stone throne – carved by the Grimleal a thousand years ago, Frederick said. “How long do you intend to visit the crown prince?” Validar asked.

Chrom rose from his kneel to face the king, though the distance between his place on the floor and the king on the throne was considerable. He couldn’t quite make out the reaction on Validar’s face when he told him, “I plan on remaining by Prince Robin’s side through his convalescence. When he is well, I will respectfully return to the halidom.”

Lightless eyes burned into him. “A prolonged stay on behalf of the Ylissian nobility will not be necessary.”

“Your Highness, I only ask to see to my fri… the prince’s recovery. Please, I ask you to allow us to remain in Plegia until he is well.” From the corner of his eye, Chrom caught Frederick nodding, and remembered to elaborate on his request. “For the sake of peaceful diplomacy between our nations, I believe it would be beneficial for a representative of Ylisse to support Prince Robin in his healing. It will be a gesture of friendship between the countries. We will not allow our allies to endeavor through the path of rehabilitation alone.”

A scoff. “The prince is not deathly ill. By the nurses’ report, he is nearly recuperated. A brief visit by the Ylissian prince, I will tolerate. But a stay in my palace for weeks on end? I find it unnecessary. There are matters to be addressed within House Plegia that are of little regard to… our neighbors.”

 _“Spawn of Naga,”_ Chrom heard whispered from beside the throne, and glanced to see Tharja slinking in the shadows.

He focused back to the king. Frederick advised him to not take his argument there, but… “Please, Lord Validar. I ask this not only as the prince of an ally nation, but as a dear friend of the prince. I wish to not turn my back on Prince Robin while he recuperates alone.”

“And as I have spoken, Prince Chrom, the crown prince is nearly well. He needs not the moral support of Ylisse.”

“Nearly well?!”

“Chrom…” Frederick and Sumia both warned.

But Validar had to be mad, madder than King Gangrel before him, to assume that Robin was nearly well. Not after what Chrom saw. “The prince has no memory! He does not recall his closest friends, he does not recall his memories before this spring. In what way is that ‘well?’”

“From what I understand, Prince Robin is only ill from influenza,” the king replied, dark and monotone. “Amnesia does not afflict him.”

“You are the prince’s father, and you have no understanding of your son’s illness?”

A brief silence expanded in the hall.

Validar shifted in his seat, casting a glare down at Chrom, Frederick, and Sumia. “As a representative of my homeland, I would mind my tongue – and assumptions – if I were you, Prince Chrom,” he said. “As for your allegation, I understand the affairs of this castle far more than you may comprehend.”

Chrom’s face heated. He’d acted rashly and given his anger too much allowance, and now he very well may have ruined his chances of being permitted more than a week’s stay in Castle Plegia. “I… apologize for my outburst, but Lord Validar, please – ”

“I will consider your request.”

And with a click of his tongue, that was that.

He could feel Tharja’s eyes on him as servants ushered him and his friends into the corridor. More heavily, however, he felt Frederick’s irritation pressing down from above him, threatening to burst when the doors to the throne room closed behind them.

“Milord,” the knight said, rich brown eyes bearing down on the prince. “It may not be my place to speak on matters of diplomacy, but that was poorly handled. You need to exhibit more restraint when negotiating with Plegia’s king – what would Lady Emmeryn say to this?”

 _She’d tell me to back off, then take all the blame on herself._ She was self-sacrificing and graceful, all that an exalt should be that Chrom was not. But it didn’t matter. He was commander of the Shepherds and… who was he kidding, it did matter. It mattered now, now that Robin was…

Chrom looked away from Frederick, away from Sumia, at the cracked stone floor. What was Robin?

What happened to him?

There was something _wrong,_ and even he had noticed. Tharja was wrong. Validar’s ignorance was wrong. Robin being bedridden, Robin’s amnesia, Robin not knowing Chrom… wrong, wrong, wrong.

“Emm… would chastise me for my manners, but she would have picked up earlier than I could have that there’s something afoot here,” he admitted.

Sumia raised an eyebrow. “Something afoot? I thought… well, we’re in Plegia. I’ve never been before, and I expected it would naturally be different from Ylisse.”

“It’s not Plegia. It’s Robin specifically.” He had mentioned it to his knights before the meeting with Validar how Robin had appeared to him the previous night: without memory, with an unsettling fiancée. “I still don’t understand why the king is unaware of his amnesia.”

“Or attempting to cover up…” Frederick scowled. “But the fact that the Grimleal are untrustworthy does not excuse your outburst, milord.”

“I understand that, _Frederick the Wary._ But why… why would Validar lie about his son’s amnesia?”

“What caused Robin to forget…”

Chrom turned to the pegasus knight, his question bright in his eyes before it came off his lips. “Sumia? What do you mean?”

“If Lord Validar knows why Robin has amnesia, then that might be why he wants to cover it up. Dare I say… what if he was part of the cause?”

Frederick’s eyes widened, and he looked around quickly to see that no one else overheard her. “Sumia!” he whispered. “Please be careful… If the king catches word that his guests suspect against him, it will mean only more trouble.”

“I feel she may be right,” Chrom said.

“Milord, don’t – ”

“We need not act on it immediately. This is a time Robin would say to keep our eyes and ears open, to notice anything peculiar, to search for answers.”

A heavy sigh escaped his retainer. “Spoken as a true general. I’d like to believe that we can put our faith in King Validar, but the Grimleal and their fanaticism… it has been worthy of my suspicion for some time now, as it has been on the exalt’s.”

“Emmeryn doesn’t trust him?”

“There is a reason she refused to allow you to visit Robin without Sumia and me by your side, milord.”

Chrom’s smile in return was thin. “Thank you, Frederick.”

“It goes without saying, but until we receive the king’s response, it is advisable that we proceed with caution.”

 _Caution._ It was difficult to exercise it when all Chrom wanted to do was shake and rattle Castle Plegia until all the answers fell out. Until Robin remembered him. Until he could tell Robin how he felt. But in diplomacy, it seemed that walking on eggshells was the only way to achieve what one wanted.

For Robin’s sake, he would walk that path.


	5. it's not your fault

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi :> i know there's not too many subscribers yet, but i'm trying my best to keep up with weekly updates ~ please be patient if i disappear for a while lol (school is... wild :o) (when i do disappear... twitter is the best bet to figure out what happened lol )

The next morning came, and Validar had yet to give a decision. As a consequence, stress hung thick and unsaid in the air in the palace. Chrom opted to avoid the tension in Castle Plegia by joining Sumia in the stables while she brushed Lovebirds; being with his friend and the horses was paradise compared to being trapped within walls of uncertainty.  

The poor pegasus. It had worked hard in flying ahead to Plegia through heat and dusty air, only to be faced with the prospect that Validar would send them away in lieu of Chrom’s rash, undiplomatic behavior. As far as he knew, they could be kicked out of Plegia within a week.

“Chrom… are you all right? I don’t think you’ve said anything since you came out here, besides watch me brush Lovebirds…” she said.

“Oh! I didn’t notice. Sorry, Sumia – I just… wanted fresh air.”

The knight moved to brush the other side of her mount, flashing Chrom a smile over a creamy white pegasus mane. “Is something on your mind?”

He chuckled. “Normally, it’s Frederick worrying over me. Is he rubbing off on you?”

“He’s rubbed off on me enough,” Sumia replied, pulling her brush down Lovebirds’ mane and revealing her hand beneath its neck. The sunlight peering into the stable reflected off the ring on her finger – a material testament to Frederick’s so-called effect on her. “I’m asking as a friend, because I care about my commander. Is something bothering you?”

Out of concern of being overheard, Chrom glanced around. They were alone. “…Validar.”

Her eyes widened before her expression settled into a sigh.

“It… will be my fault alone,” he said, and didn’t go any further. If the already precarious relations between the nations fell apart, it was his fault. If the king sent them back to Ylissitol tomorrow, it was his fault. If he never saw Robin again, it was his fault.

“You can’t say that like that,” Sumia replied. “You’re only acting as a normal friend, I think. King Validar should recognize that… right?”

But Chrom wasn’t acquainted with the Plegian king well enough to know how much he valued love and friendship, if he did at all. His impression of Validar was based on a handful of formal interactions and the words of Emmeryn and Robin, who had both spoken with him more than Chrom had. They told him roughly the same thing. Validar was efficient in achieving his goals, likely because he didn’t care much for personal attachments, even to his children.

Chrom chalked it up as a consequence of the difference between the face one put on for the political realm and the one behind the mask. Emmeryn acted as such, more composed in the court than when she was with Chrom and Lissa. But her spirit – her warmth, her kindness – carried over. She was still Emmeryn, no matter where she was.

By that token, Validar, who clearly lacked any sort of tenderheartedness at all…

He glanced out of the stable, across the yard to the tall spires of the castle. “…I hope so,” Chrom said.

“Me too-agh!”

The prince turned back to Sumia. As typical of the clumsy knight, she’d dropped her brush when Lovebirds decided to catch her off guard and stretch out its wing while she groomed it. He hadn’t had a chance to kneel down and help her before a voice interrupted the moment.

“…Are you okay?”

Chrom turned around.

Robin stood in between the shade of the stables and the glow of daylight, a delicate hand held against the wooden frame. So they’d let him out of bed. He was dressed for summer instead of the sick room, wearing a loose beige tunic tucked into white pants – the dust from the outside was already leaving a signature on them, Chrom noticed. He smiled.

But Robin spoke first. “Chrom,” he said, directing his attention at the Ylissian commander before his eyes slid over to Sumia and paused. “And… Sumia?”

She nodded, readjusting her skirt, her pegasus brush clutched in her hand once more.

“I wanted to thank you for coming all this way to inquire about my condition. My father told me how you spoke to him about remaining in Plegia for the duration of my convalescence, to see it through. I felt it would be best if I told you in person that the nurses let me off bedrest… and to thank you for your concern.”

“It’s no problem at all, Robin,” Chrom replied. “There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for a dear friend.”

“That’s… that’s it. A dear friend.” A grimace crossed his face, and the prince appeared to take great interest in the earth beneath them. “I wanted to speak to you about that.”

Chrom smiled to him again, ignoring the melancholy behind his words. He offered Robin a hand. “Shall we walk, then?”

He paused, considering the open hand before him with bright, light brown eyes. Uncertainty, that’s what it was. Chrom couldn’t blame him. He’d shown up out of the blue with nothing more than a forgotten narrative of what he _thought_ was Robin’s life, unless he’d unknowingly been drawn to Plegia by the delusion of dreams. He wasn’t sure which he preferred.

“C-chrom hasn’t done anything to help me with my pegasus,” Sumia chimed in suddenly. “Please, Prince Robin. Take him off my hands for a little while.”

Chrom blushed – when had Sumia figured out how he felt about Robin? But the prince chuckled at her unsubtle attempt at meddling and relaxed into a smile. He placed his hand in his, the silk of his gloves smooth on his palm. “It would be nicer to speak outside the stables, I suppose.”

A nod, a shake of the hand, and Chrom lead Robin into the yard.

For appearance's sake – it likely wasn’t becoming of him to be overly familiar with the foreign guests – Robin dropped his hand back to his side as they walked across the dusty stone path. “I’m sorry you’ve come all this way just for this, Chrom,” he said. “After you greeted me the other day… I was convinced that you’d come to the wrong person. That there was, somehow, another Robin in Plegia who was looking for you the same way you were looking for him. But I know that isn’t possible.”

“It isn’t,” he replied. “I know it’s hard to believe, given your… state, but I’ve known you for a long time. You’ve been to Ylisse so many times, you’ve met my sisters, you’ve even met Sumia before! So forgive me… because it’s hard to imagine that for you, none of that ever happened, at least until you can remember.”

“That… that’s it, Chrom.”

Robin stopped walking.

“What?”

“I want to believe you, that we were the closest friends. That we _are_ the closest of friends.” He tugged at his own sleeve, looking down at his shirt instead of keeping eye contact with Chrom. “But I can’t remember.”

“That doesn’t mean you won’t! I’m sure there’s some way to recall your memories. There has to be. They’re somewhere.”

“No… Chrom… for me, the first time I ever met you was two days ago. And no matter what memories _you_ have, that is my reality.”

For Chrom, the memories were ever-present. They were as much a part of him today as they were when he first experienced them. No matter what, he couldn’t see Robin – even as a grown man, wiping sweat from his brow in the arid heat of Plegia – without tying him to the image of the bright-eyed boy he’d discovered in flower garden ten years before.

But for Robin, they weren’t real at all, and never were to begin with.

“Robin…”

“Perhaps we’ll become friends over time, but for right now… I’m not the person you knew when you were younger. I wish it wasn’t like this. But it’s the best we can hope for.”

The blue-haired prince forced a smile, meeting Robin’s eyes for only a moment before they darted away again. “That’s okay. We can start… fresh. There isn’t anything wrong with that.”

But with so much missing from their story, there was.

“I’m sorry,” Robin said.

Chrom didn’t question it when the prince left and returned to the castle.


	6. waiting

After dinner, Frederick caught him as he made his way back to his quarters. There was a certain heaviness to his eyes.

“…The news?” Chrom asked.

Frederick sighed. “A fortnight. King Validar has offered us to stay on a ‘diplomatic visit’ for that much longer before returning to Ylisse.”

“I’m surprised. I felt he might turn us away immediately – Validar seems to be of the short-tempered type.”

“Not unlike another royal I know.” Chrom glowered at him, but the knight continued, “The king has also sent word, through the staff, that the next time he will be expecting Ylissian guests will be this coming autumn, at the wedding of Prince Robin and Lady Tharja.”

“…That will be fine.”

“Milord?”

A grimace tugged at Chrom’s lips. “That woman Tharja… I know you let into me about how I trust too easily, Frederick, but surely you’ve noticed?”

“I have. She’s a Grimleal, milord. That in itself makes her entire presence foreboding.”

 _What about Robin? Isn’t he Grimleal too? He isn’t like her._ But it was probably better to keep those worries to himself. He’d gotten enough bad news about Robin in the past few days, anyway – though in the years he’d known him, Robin never came across as religious, at least not in the same way his father was.

“…Thank you, Frederick. I’m going to retire now – in the morning, we can decide on where to go from here.”

The knight grabbed his shoulder before he could completely turn around.

“Chrom, about Robin…”

“I’ll tell him that we’re staying longer. He’s healed – I suppose I was mistaken, and Validar was right. I’m not sure why he’s letting us stay. But for my friend, I won’t let the gift of a fortnight go to waste.”

A smile. “I was going to ask how he was doing. Sumia told me he came to speak with you this morning.”

“He… he still doesn’t remember anything,” Chrom sighed, the weight of a thousand lost memories upon him. “But he’s still my closest friend.”

 

* * *

 

 Robin sat at a table beside a floor-to-ceiling window, illuminated by morning light that danced off the dust in the air as if it were gold and settled on his hair like silver. Just like how he’d infallibly catch him in Ylisse’s royal library every other morning, here he was with his nose in a book in Plegia, devoting his morning to reading as he always did. It was one reassurance that, despite his amnesia, he was still Robin.

The only sound in the library was that of an occasional page turn on Robin’s part. He came to speak to the prince, but he seemed so serene… hunched over the tome, considering it, his eyes never wandering from the text… maybe it was better to watch. To wait.

A part of him still felt natural seeing him like that. The Robin who read his book in the warm, gentle light was the same Robin he’d seen reading in the blue light of a stormy day, years before. He was still there.  

He was eleven at the time. They normally spent their time outside, practicing swordplay or otherwise playing around, but today had been an endless onslaught of rainstorms. Lissa didn’t seem to mind, since Maribelle was always around to play house with her. Chrom, however, was stuck, and though he wanted to spend as much time with Robin as he could before he left again, Robin’s idea of fun on a rainy day was the study of tactics. Not the most exciting thing in Chrom’s mind.

But there wasn’t much of anything else to do on a stormy day, so while Robin sat beside him reading, he stood beside the table, gazing restlessly out at the rain-soaked world.

“…Aren’t you bored?” he finally asked.

“Yes, I am. But… Chrom, don’t you want to pick up a book and read too? At least do _something_.”

Chrom’s shoulders sagged as he conceded and sat across from Robin at the wooden table. “Do you have any recommendations?”

“Ha, I didn’t think you would actually take me up on the offer. Here,” Robin replied, pulling a dark brown tome from the stack of books he’d arranged beside him and sliding it to Chrom. “We can be bored together, then.”

He smiled over the book at Robin before proceeding to read it – or attempt to. He flipped to the first page. _“Long ago, Medeus, king of the dragonkin, conquered the continent…”_ Apparently, his friend thought it would be useful for him to brush up on history today.

“…Robin, history is…”

Hazel eyes cut a firm glare at him across the table, then loosened into a smile. “Do you want me to tell Emmeryn that you don’t know your own country’s history? Or Frederick?”

Chrom looked to the side sheepishly, then back to the book before him. “ _Again, darkness threatened to engulf the continent. It fell upon the king of Altea, sole descendent of the dragon-slayer hero, to sally forth with the divine blade and fulfill his blood destiny.”_

“Oh, that’s my ancestor… Robin, do you know the story of Marth the Hero-King?” he asked. He hadn’t even finished reading the page.

Robin tilted his book down to face Chrom. “Not as much at home as I have here. Ylisse is fairly proud of its roots, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. It’s sort of unbelievable, when I think about it… Emm and Lissa and I are related to him. That’s why… I mean, you know. The Falchion and the brand and the title and everything.”

“Mm.”

“Is there anything like that for you?”

He glanced upwards. “There’s… Father told me that because I’m the oldest, I’ll take over as head of the Grimleal one day. I don’t know about Aversa, but she’s learning sorcery… I suppose tomes to us are like the Falchion in Ylisse.”

“What’s that like?”

“I practice every day. My sister, too. Father has us do so every day, to fulfill our destiny in life…”

“Is it fun?”

“It…” Robin grimaced at Chrom’s words and failed to complete his thought.

“Is something wrong?” he asked, brows pressed together. He’d sparred with Robin more times than he could count – surely he didn’t hate magic, but his reaction wasn’t what he expected.

“…When I was younger, Father pushed me rigorously to get stronger. But magic is difficult. It’s finicky. So if you don’t treat it right, if you aren’t quite experienced… you really have to let the magic work with _you,_ rather than the other way around. If you force it, you’ll get hurt.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means an answer to your question,” Robin replied, but realized how sharp his response came across. “I’m sorry. It’s not very fun to learn magic at first, because it’s hardest when you’re starting out. Especially when you don’t have a choice.”

He wasn’t sure if that meant he didn’t have a choice in learning magic, or if he was calling back on his destiny as a prince, the destiny that paralleled Chrom and the divine blade. “I guess I understand. It’s like how the Falchion chooses its wielder, right?”

Robin sighed, but a mellow smile bloomed on his lips. “In a way. There’s just… some things we can’t quite control. We have to work our way through them, I think.”

_But then what can we control?_

Not much, it seemed, now that Robin forgot him, now that his closest friend was simultaneously so close and yet a million miles away, lost in a book while a foreign prince breathed behind his bookshelf.

He stepped closer, finally emerging into the light. The sound of his boots on the floor was enough to get Robin’s attention, and so he smiled when the prince turned his head to him. “Good morning, Robin.”

A polite smile and nod in return. “Good morning. I trust you’re doing well?”

“Yes. Um…” He motioned to Robin’s book, a thick leather-bound volume. “What’s that you’re reading?”

“It’s a _History of Plegia._ When I… woke up, I found it on my nightstand with a bookmark in it. Apparently, I was re-reading it before I lost my memory, so now I have to start from the beginning again.”

Chrom chuckled. “That’s inconvenient. But it must help, reading history to get reacquainted with the world.”

“Mm. I likely would have read it anyway – I don’t recall any events from before, but I still feel like me – I know that I like to read, and that I can use magic fairly well, and… I’m sorry, I’m telling you too much, aren’t I?”

“What? No, Robin, it’s fine. I like talking to you.” He always did. He always would.

Chrom caught what he thought was a tinge of pink on Robin’s cheeks before he changed the subject. “What brings you to the library this morning? I didn’t take you for the type to devote his morning to a book.”

“Hah, I’m not, actually,” he replied. “I knew I would be able to find you here. I just wanted to tell you that I’ve received word from the king that my knights and I will be allowed a fortnight longer in Plegia.”

“Oh. I see. I’ve heard as much.”

“…Because of that, I wanted to ask if we could be friends.”

“What?”

Chrom took a breath, exhaling slowly before going on. “I understand what you said, about how as far as you know, I’ve never existed in your life before. But I have. And I… I miss you, Robin, so if there’s any chance I can be your friend again, I’d like to. Even if we have to build up from scratch.”

“…Chrom, I don’t mind. But I want you to know that it won’t be the same as what you knew before.”

“I know.”

_I’ll wait for you._

Robin looked up at him, warm sunlight shining in bright eyes. He nodded.

As usual, the prince had arranged a stack of books beside him on the table – his idea of “light reading” on a Sunday morning. He pointed to them. “Would you perhaps like to read together? I know it isn’t the most exciting thing, but it’s nice to have a companion, I think.”

“I don’t mind at all,” Chrom replied as he took the top book from the stack and sat across from Robin, settling back into the pattern he’d established on a rainy day with a good friend back home in Ylisse.

A smirk tugged at the corners of Robin’s lips, and he went back to the history book.

Just that was enough to seize Chrom’s heart for a second.

_I love you._

The feeling was clear, with no need for explanation or analysis, echoing in his mind with every glance he caught of his friend. But it was too early for confessions, too early for Robin to be sure he was who he said he was. He’d have to wait, but waiting was worth it. He’d wait no matter what, no matter amnesia or politics or betrothal.

He’d wait as long as it took – a hundred years, a thousand years – until Robin remembered.


	7. premonition

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've decided to try and update every Friday! (should I say that? I might jinx myself lol)
> 
> Also working on longer updates... they're gradually getting longer ah

When did the memories stop?

When did they begin again?

It was too cloudy, too vague to pin down to a specific _point_ where he lost it, like peering into a murky pond in search for a single silver fish. So he’d given up trying to figure out the boundaries of his memories. It didn’t matter when he forgot – all he could do was try and string together the bits and pieces he picked up into a narrative of what he lost.

There was a boy named Chrom. This he knew.

There was a boy named Chrom; his hair was blue and his smile was as real and bright as the sky. But who was he, really? Robin didn’t know.

According to Chrom, he just didn’t remember.

But that didn’t make sense. Perhaps he didn’t recall anything that happened in his life up to a few weeks ago, but the fact that he lived in _Plegia –_ not Ylisse – was enough to make him question Chrom’s story. Giving his new friend the benefit of a doubt, it was plausible enough. Diplomacy and the like was a viable explanation for the two of them being aware of each other’s existence. And yet he was not only a resident on Plegia, but the high prince, and that fact in itself made the rest of his life simple enough to piece together from there.

Right?

He started from the beginning of what he knew about himself, based on the past few weeks of living in Plegia. Sitting at the dark wooden desk in his room, Robin opened his leather-bound journal to the next blank page and started his list with ink and quill.

The first thing he knew, of course, was that he lived in Plegia, in the capital in the barren desert. In the history book he’d taken up reading, he learned that not all of Plegia was a wasteland. There were some farmlands, and mountains, and port cities along the coast. Why his forefathers decided to erect the throne in the severity of the gods-forsaken _desert_ was beyond him.

He lived in Plegia because he was a prince. That was the second thing he knew.

He was the prince because he was the son of Validar, the reigning king of Plegia: the third thing. Not only was his father (his _father –_ someone he should be familiar with, and yet the term felt so awkward) the ruler of the nation, he was also the leader of the Grimleal. That was number one on things Robin most certainly _didn’t_ understand. A religion, he’d gathered. The type? No clue.

The fourth thing he knew was that he was engaged to a woman named Tharja. Unfortunately, she too was on Robin’s list of great mysteries.

Had he fallen in love with her at some point? It was a possibility, he supposed; she was a lady on Plegia’s court and a notorious sorceress, so he must have known her prior to losing his memory. But the fact that she’d been introduced to him by his father while he was still stuck in a sick bed gave him the impression that his engagement was not of his own will. What Validar sought to gain from the arrangement, however, he didn’t quite understand.

There wasn’t anything he wanted from the marriage. If it was an arranged affair, if the past him fell in love with the woman… so be it, there wasn’t much he could do to change it. Marriages of convenience weren’t uncommon, anyway.

But Tharja was… obsessive, to say the least, and that unsettled him.

As if he’d summoned her, she manifested in the doorway as soon as Robin wrote her name beside _#4_ on the list in his journal. Though the ink hadn’t dried, he shut it as she approached. There wasn’t much good that came out of inviting questions out of his fiancée. Last time they spoke, she mentioned how many times he turned over in his sleep… Robin wasn’t sure what to make of the fact that she had him under constant observation.

She came to the desk, long nails clicking against wood as she spread her fingers on the surface. Thick black hair spilled over her shoulders as she leaned closer, which Robin followed up her visage to find crowned by a golden circlet. “Lord Robin… the king sent me to bring you to him,” she said.

“May I ask why?”

His eyes dipped to catch the flicker of a smile on her lips. “We can find out… together… if you come with me.”

Robin sighed as he rose. “Let us go meet him, then,” he said. Hopefully it wasn’t a ruse just to get him to be with her, but considering how little he knew about this world, perhaps it was better to give Tharja the benefit of a doubt. Maybe she was just… misunderstood. After all, there wasn’t any way to change the fact that they were engaged.

Not presently, anyway. The watching his sleep thing made him hope there was some sort of loophole out of it.

The prince followed Tharja’s head of raven hair as she led him through the winding castle halls, not to the throne room but to the king’s personal quarters. Only once before had he been here. The previous afternoon, he decided a walk might reacquaint him with the castle, and found himself wandering around the corridors until a servant warned him that his father didn’t appreciate uninvited guests in his bedchamber. Not even his son. Validar wasn’t very much the personal type, it seemed.

Yet he invited Robin and Tharja here today. Peculiar. Whatever it was he wanted to see Robin about… he must not want to be overheard.

She pushed open the door to reveal his father sitting on a sofa in the lounge of his room. He was nearly camouflaged into the décor. Most everything – the sofa cushions, the rug, the curtains – was black.

A symbol of power and elegance, but also of mystery.

Validar smirked at his son, who still stood at the threshold, taking in the dark room. “Robin, Tharja,” he greeted, drawing their names out in the air. “You don’t have to gape. Have a seat. We need to speak.”

Robin did as told, sitting beside his fiancée on the couch across from the king. From here, he finally had a complete view of the man who claimed to be his father – all their previous interactions had been short-lived affairs during the time he was still confined to bed. Walk in, say something to a nurse, leave. Walk in, introduce Tharja, leave. Walk in, glance over Robin, leave. The prince wouldn’t even know Validar was his father if he hadn’t asked Tharja one day who the man who appeared every so often was.

 _He’s foreboding,_ he thought, and then caught himself. This was his father. He shouldn’t jump to negative conclusions, but the king’s tall, slender frame, ebony hair, lightless eyes and lightless skin… he looked more like Tharja than his own flesh and blood, though even Tharja came across as more friendly than him.

The king spoke, and Robin snapped out of his gawking. “This is about our Ylissian guests.”

“Ah, yes. I was wondering about that. Chrom told me - ”

“’ _Chrom?_ ’” Validar scoffed. “You speak of the little prince so casually? Since when have you befriended the boy?”

His hostile snap shut down every question Robin had prepared to ask him about his past.

“They’ve come on diplomatic niceties,” the king explained. “It’s a ploy on their exalt’s part to make the relations between our nations seem civil. But they have something that belongs to us, something that I need for the sake of this country… for the sake of the world. I suppose it is of benefit that the prince trusts you, because I need you to gain information for me.”

“Information?” Robin asked. “Information in regards to what?”

“The Fire Emblem.”

An important-sounding title that had no meaning whatsoever to him. “Father, may I ask what that is? And why I should be gathering information from Ch… Prince Chrom about it?”

“You can’t recall? Truly, Robin, I expected you had more wit to you than to forget details like this,” Validar replied, raising a thick eyebrow. “The Fire Emblem is the treasure of House Ylisse. It has the power to grant any wish, to unlock any door, to make any dream reality. Because of that, I doubt the exalt has it simply out on display – through the prince, I aim to find out how to get ahold of it.”

“May I ask why?”

“It is pertinent to the duties of the Grimleal.”

Questions lingered in Robin’s mind, but he kept them to himself. The pointedness of Validar’s response told him that it would be answered in time.

A silence expanded in the room for a moment, only to be interrupted by the king asking, “Is my request of you understood?”

Robin hesitated. “Yes, father.”

“Robin… you aren’t nervous, are you?” Tharja asked, sliding closer, sneaking her fingers down his arm and taking his hand. “I’ll be here to help you… I want you to know that… always. If the little prince won’t help us, I’ll make him…”

“Th-thank you, Tharja,” Robin replied.

But there was something that didn’t seem right, something he didn’t understand… there wasn’t much he _did_ understand, was there? It was best to listen to his father – in this case, he knew more than he did.

 _For the sake of the world…_ was the Emblem truly that pivotal?

Validar noticed his grimace, which he returned with a disapproving frown of his own. “Don’t make this difficult, Robin. It is not a major request. You simply need to extract information from the Ylissian nobles – you even have Lady Tharja here to help you.”

“I understand.” He didn’t. Something was missing. Something needed explaining – everything needed explaining, but the way the king looked at him with black-hole eyes full of solemn expectation… it wasn’t an excellent time to bring up the issue of his missing memories.

Robin swallowed his doubts and looked across to his father.

A mischievous, almost sinister smile danced on Validar’s lips. “Good.”


	8. the second time around

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Specifying some details of the canon divergence - Gangrel rose to power earlier in this timeline, but also fell earlier so Validar could take the throne. 
> 
> Working on this reminds me that I should proooooobably finish the run of Awakening I'm doing right now aha

“Like old times,” Chrom had said the other day when Robin agreed to spar with him.

But even though swordplay came as natural to Robin as any other skill he’d acquired before his amnesia, Chrom’s unfamiliar and awkward fighting style didn’t. Not that Robin had anything to compare it to – what was he expecting? – but it felt different from the way he thought people moved in Plegia. Plegia was sand and sand and sand for miles into the earth without any sturdy place to put one’s feet. Plegia was the home of nimble thieves, of airborne pegasi, of light-footed mages. It was not hospitable to the average swordsman, not even if he was a commander.

Noting how Chrom fought was interesting, however. The Falchion was by no means a light blade, so the prince had to grip it with both hands in order to attack with his full force. Usually he kept the heirloom put away during his matches with Robin, however, and fought with a rapier; the difference was as stark as if he spoke two different languages.

When they fought like that, the glimpses he caught of his opponent in combat gave him fleeting notions that perhaps he could exist in the desert. Chrom could _dance_ in battle, rising and falling swiftly against his jagged Levin Sword with the rapier’s thin blade. Where the Falchion was harsh, throaty tones, the rapier was a song.

Robin fell away from him, having narrowly dodged the thrust of Chrom’s blade. Simply knowing swordplay hadn’t made him adept at the art, and his illness put him out of practice; it didn’t take long for a match to wear him out.

Chrom noticed his labored breaths. “Are you all right?” he asked. “We can take a break.”

“That… that would be nice,” Robin said, pulling off his gloves. They’d begun to stick to his skin in the heat, but wearing them was evidently a habit he’d developed long ago that couldn’t be broken.

“Robin, do you mind if I ask you something?”

He looked over at Chrom, the pair of sweat-soaked gloves hanging limp in his hand. “No, go ahead.”

“Do you know what the marks on your hands mean?”

Oh. That.

For perhaps the thousandth time, Robin looked down at the back of his hands, the dark V-formation of six eyes painted on them. He’d spent hours at a time staring at the pattern and trying to make sense of it, especially when the nurses had kept him in bed. But alas, the birthmark was on his list of mysteries, right up there with his father’s religion and Chrom’s motivation.

The glove habit told him that the past him didn’t want the markings to be seen. But why? Was it something like the marking that graced Chrom’s shoulder, or merely a coincidental birthmark?

Or was it something else entirely?

Robin sighed and held his right hand in his left, running his thumb over the violet-black stained skin. “I’ve asked myself the same thing,” he replied. “I don’t know. They look like the pattern on my coat and the Plegian crest but… I don’t know if it means anything other than proving my royal blood. If that makes sense, anyway.”

“I understand. If you did know, you must have forgotten.”

 _But why do you want to know? Why are you so curious? Why are you so invested?_ he wanted to ask. There was a more pressing question at hand, however, one that he had put off for the past few days – much to his father’s dismay.

“Do you mind if I ask a question in return?” he said.

“No.” Chrom began walking from the center of the courtyard to the veranda that led to the castle. “We should sit in the shade, though. Wouldn’t want to burn.”

Robin chuckled under his breath as he followed him. An Ylissian concern, he’d noticed – Chrom’s skin was the color of parchment compared to his own darker tones, and as strong as he was, Plegian sunshine wasn’t very friendly to foreigners.

Chrom didn’t worry about the dusty ground and sat cross-legged on the cool stone floor. Robin followed suit. “I hope this doesn’t come across as peculiar, but I feel like if anyone would know, it would be you,” he told him.

“You can ask me anything, Robin. You can trust me.”

He swallowed. “Then… can you tell me about the Fire Emblem?”

“The Emblem? How do you know about that?” He didn’t sound offended, as Robin had feared, but genuinely curious as to how a man with no memory knew of his nation’s treasure.

“I was reading a book that mentioned it,” the prince lied. “It’s an artifact, right?”

“I guess you can call it that. It’s been passed down through House Ylisse longer than anyone knows. Emmeryn knows more about this kind of thing than me, though, since she’s the exalt.”

“Ah, I see. Is it that special?”

“I think so. Apparently, it has the power to grant any wish or something along those lines. I forgot all the details, but there’s something about it turning the tide of war, slaying dragons, accessing treasures… heroic things, I suppose.”

“Hm.” So perhaps Chrom wasn’t the best source of information. “Where does the exalt keep such an item? It must be heavily guarded, I’m sure. She wouldn’t want others to have their hands on it.”

“Hah, the Emblem? Emmeryn would let me see it anytime I wanted, I think. It’s a shield, anyway. Part of House Ylisse’s birthright is to wield it with the Falchion.”

Robin’s brows arched. “So it isn’t under tight control?”

“Why, did you think someone would try to steal it?”

“No…”

“Ylissians are good people. Our people wouldn’t attempt to snatch a national symbol for personal gain – they respect what it means to the country. At least they do now.”

“’Now?’ What do you mean?” Robin asked.

“That’s right. You wouldn’t know.” Chrom exhaled heavily, the weight of a great history upon his breath. “It started before Lissa and I were born, and mostly happened when I was too young to understand what was going on. Ylisse, under the reign of my father, waged a religious war against Plegia. It didn’t end until my Father and King Gangrel both fell in battle, but at that point, Ylisse was starved for soldiers… when Emmeryn took the throne, the people were far from happy with her.”

“But now?”

A mellow smile crept across his face. “My sister is ten times the person I’ll ever be. Every insult, every stone… she took it in stride. She promised to raise Ylisse as a nation of peace and prosperity, and even though she’s only held the title for a little over a decade. Everyone respects her as the exalt, and by extension, they respect the significance of the Emblem to the country.”

Guilt bubbled in Robin’s stomach. He didn’t know the exalt Emmeryn at all, but Chrom loved his sister. To attempt to gain the Fire Emblem from him…

He was clearly trusting. It would be easy to gain his favor, then manipulate the Emblem out of him.

So why couldn’t he do it?

He wondered what Emmeryn looked like. She sounded larger than life, the way Chrom described her as a ruler… but she wasn’t too much older than them. Did she resemble her brother much? Chrom didn’t look much like a ruler, though. He looked like… like a commander, like a man who acted too quickly and cared too deeply.

“What… what was your father like to make people treat her like that?” Robin asked, ignoring the high road of his consciousness screaming at him to _do what Validar said and figure out how to get the Fire Emblem off him._

“Hmm. I don’t recall much. He wasn’t around a lot when I was young… I remember him being away for a long time, and then his lieutenant returning one day with nothing of him but his helmet and the Falchion… I think Emmeryn remembers more, though. She’s told me that she decided how she wanted to rule Ylisse when she looked at him and decided that was how she _didn’t_ want to be.”

“So she put an end to the war.”

Chrom nodded. “In the same battle, both sides lost their ruler. The time after was a sort of limbo… Emmeryn took the throne when she was only nine, and her first action was to offer a peace agreement with Plegia. No one had anything to fight with, no one had anything worth fighting for. The religious values father based his campaign on… everyone came to the realization he was a fanatic, so Emmeryn made it clear that her ambitions were not for glory, but for peace.”

Fanaticism and peace, father and child. He’d expect one to model each other, but Emmeryn opted to cast her father’s ideals aside and lay down a new path for her country. “You really admire her, don’t you?” Robin asked.

Chrom gave a toothy grin, and Robin caught the afternoon sun smiling in his eyes, stark blue like the sky. “Yes. Don’t let her know I’m… mushy about it, though.”

“It’ll be my secret,” he replied with a snicker.

 _How odd_ , he thought. The past him… if Chrom’s claim of their friendship was true, he likely knew these details about him, whether he’d figured it or for himself or Chrom outright told him. If it was the latter, then this was Chrom’s second time explaining.

What was it like to do everything for a second time? That was where he and Chrom differed. Every one of Chrom’s actions was a second, a third, a fourth. For Robin, everything was a first, but his friend the prince didn’t seem to mind waiting for him to catch up.

Deep down, he was glad his past self had someone like that as a friend. He was glad he had someone like that as a friend _now._

For some reason, he doubted his father would be happy with that.


	9. the fell dragon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY. I'm here y'all, I'm alive :>
> 
> It's spring break now! Hopefully I can do some more writing with my free time :')

Validar wasn’t happy with it at all.

“The prince is returning for Ylisse in two days, and you have no information from him regarding the Fire Emblem?” he asked.

Robin swallowed, avoiding the piercing gaze of his father. “He seems to be tight-lipped about it. The Ylissians see it as a national treasure.” He wasn’t completely lying.

Validar’s response was a pointed sigh and a pinch at the bridge of his nose. “Naturally. But did it occur to you, Robin, that that was perhaps the _reason_ I asked you to speak to him? He won’t reveal their secrets on a whim. You need to… pry it out of him.”

The king’s mischaracterization of Chrom was laughable, but Robin retained his composure. In the past week, he learned good and well from his interactions with him that the prince trusted him completely. He was willing to tell him anything if he asked. For goodness sake, he would probably be willing to seize the Emblem from Ylissitol and lay it in Robin’s hands if he only requested it of him.

But he couldn’t bring himself to take that step.

“I am trying to do so, father – please have faith in me. It simply appears that no matter how I attempt to coerce the prince into disclosing the situation of the Fire Emblem, he won’t give any information. I’m beginning to think he genuinely lacks knowledge of it. Perhaps it would be better to initiate correspondence with the Exalt herself?”

Validar glared down at him. He didn’t appreciate being talked back to, it seemed. “Excuses are the tools of a weakling. There is no place for such here.”

“I… I apologize. I only felt that for acquiring something from Ylisse, it may be most efficient to speak to the exalt and explain that we –”

“Your weakness doesn’t bode well in the eyes of Grima.”

And in that moment, it felt as though his father’s ebony eyes struck directly through Robin’s body and to his heart, feasting upon the weakness he’d tried so hard to keep from his sight. That he’d tried to keep from manifesting at all.

Chrom.

He wasn’t sure what told him rekindling his bond with an Ylissian prince was not in his best interest. What it was about the appearance of a blue-haired young man at his bedside last week that left him feeling peculiar. It wasn’t much more than a vague premonition, but something about Castle Plegia told him that Chrom didn’t belong there – besides the fact he was heir to the Ylissian crown. Something ran deeper, and he could feel it. Odd shadows lurked beneath the floor, whispering hostilities toward his companion in the same manner Tharja hissed _spawn of Naga._

Yet he’d done it anyway. Despite every reservation, he’d grown to see Chrom as a friend.

Robin liked Chrom. He liked that he was confident, that he was friendly, that he was compassionate. They got along well. And even though he knew of no history with the prince before that, he’s come to accept that they’d known each other before, one way or another.

They’d established a fledgling connection with each other – Chrom picking up the pieces of what once was while Robin pieced together what could be. And he couldn’t jeopardize that.

Chrom, the man he had known for no more than two weeks, had already written his name on Robin’s heart. A weakness.

Validar didn’t know that, Validar didn’t have to know that, Validar wouldn’t know that. But the way he spoke Grima’s name with such grim reverence, it seemed that they – whoever _they_ were – knew.

“Why?” asked Robin tentatively.

“Why does Grima despise weakness?” The king nearly laughed. “You should know, child. The Fell Dragon requires three items to manifest in this world wholly: The Dragon’s Table as an offering, a vessel as a home, and the power of the Fire Emblem as a catalyst. Grima cannot come forth on a sparse table or a frail vessel.”

That didn’t make any sense. “What _is_ Grima?”

A grin cracked on Validar’s face. “Grima is… Grima is despair. Ruin. Annihilation.”

It was certainly a peculiar way of describing one’s patron deity; they certainly didn’t sound like something _good._

He had seen the name before: “The founding of Plegia was based around the worship of the deity Grima,” he’d read in his history book. But that was it. Any other details about the so-called Fell Dragon and the Grimleal were missing, and the only way to learn about them might be from their leader Validar himself.

As the leader of the Grimleal, Validar seemed to think it imperative to revive the slumbering dragon on Earth.

_Despair. Ruin. Annihilation._

Why did he worship that?

What was there to gain?

And if Grima was revived, what would happen?

Too many questions would make the king suspicious of Robin’s ambitions, so he kept them to himself. He still lacked sufficient knowledge of the world around him; not to mention, Validar didn’t appear to recognize that his son couldn’t remember a single thing about his religion or his role in the Plegian royal house at all.

“…Thank you,” he finally replied, though the vague and unsettling description of Grima did little to ease his mind.

“You may be excused, then. Consider what has been said, and speak to the prince. I’ve no time for you any longer.”

Robin didn’t delay in leaving the throne room.

He’d left the history book in the library, and after that eerie conversation, he figured it was worth reading over again. It was worth looking into more books, actually. In a nation rooted in the worship of an unseen deity, there had to be something, somewhere, as to why. Some record of who Grima was. Some explanation as to why Validar’s devotion to the dragon gave Robin the odd feeling in his stomach that it did.

The palace library was empty when he reached it, save for the long shadows of bookcases cast by the orange light of sunset. He’d be studying by candlelight, it seemed. If he wanted to pull out books without having to fuss over holding a flame against them, he’d have to do it hastily, while natural light still guided him.

It was the bottom shelf that the scholars decided to place the history volumes. Mindful of his long coat dragging on the floor, Robin had to crouch down to scan the spines of the books for any titles that might be of value. _Plegian Prehistory, Commerce in Archanea, Desert Agriculture Through the Ages…_

He’d just pulled _The War of the Dragon_ into his arms when he realized he wasn’t alone.

There was a slender shadow looming over him, though its source made no sound. Carefully, Robin turned his head to see a pair of dark, female legs behind him. “Tharja…?” he said, scanning up her body with his eyes to see her face. “What are you doing here?”

She didn’t respond at first. Then, she slunk down to the floor behind him, tenderly wrapping her arms around his shoulders. “I just… I was meant to be with you now.”

“So you wanted to see me?”

“You could… say it like that.”

“Was there something you wanted to speak to me about?”

“I hope you don’t mind… I wanted to hold you once… we are engaged, after all…”

He nearly shuddered; he had to remind himself that he was to marry her soon. How was that even supposed to happen? He was certain he was not in love with the woman, and doubted he ever was. Tharja was just… too much. While he didn’t hate her, their relationship was heavily one-sided, with the sorceress’ intense obsession reciprocated only by Robin’s mild distaste for her.

“I… it’s no bother, but don’t you think this is a tad unconventional?” he asked.

She didn’t answer him and pressed her head against his back. Her skin, he noticed, was pleasantly warm. Surprisingly human.

And then it dawned on him.

“Tharja… you know, don’t you? That I’ve lost my memories?”

She pulled her arms closer around him, her breath tickling the back of his neck as she spoke. “You’ve made it… apparent… you always have your nose in a history book, or you talk to the Ylissian boy about the past, or you take notes…”

“Then why does Validar act as if it never happened?”

“That isn’t my primary concern.”

“Do you know what happened to me?”

“No.”

Robin rose, pulling Tharja up with him and turning to face her. With nightfall cast over them, he could hardly make out her face, save for a thin glimmer in her onyx eyes. “I think we need to talk.”

He couldn’t quite see, but knew Tharja reacted with an odd expression. “What do we need to talk about…?”

“We…” He stopped. Quickly, he looked around them – surely there wasn’t anyone else in the library, but if Tharja knew things that Validar didn’t want him to know, it might be best that they weren’t overheard.

He took a breath. She was one of the most perplexing people he knew, even though he could count his acquaintances on one hand. And she was his best chance at understanding what happened.

“The first thing I would like to know, if you’re willing to help me,” Robin began, “is who Grima is.”


	10. light

Chrom was to leave in the morning, and it was the least Robin could do to see him off at the castle gate. The desert land stretched out beyond the capital city, awash in mellow orange sunlight for miles past what they could see. There was a long journey ahead of him.

“It feels like we barely had a day to spend here,” he said, forcing a laugh. 

A certain melancholy settled in his deep blue eyes, Robin noticed – there was no fooling him. But what did he say to that? _I feel the same? I’ll miss you?_ He would, but it felt so odd to tell him as such.

“I know,” he finally replied. “I’m sorry that your visit got off to such a peculiar start. I hope you understand.”

“I do. It’s okay, Robin. It’s not your fault.”

He sighed. There was much he still didn’t understand, but perhaps even more that Chrom was unaware of. 

If only he could live as blissfully as that. If Robin had it his way, he’d leave Castle Plegia and its sinister atmosphere behind and live with his friend Chrom – without suspicions, without mysteries, without omens and portents. 

 _Take me with you,_ he wanted to plead. But that wasn’t the best action, either. 

A rare breeze tugged at the ends of Robin’s coat and Chrom’s cape, as if trying to nudge the commander onto his return home. “…Chrom.”

“Yes?”

“What… what made you come all this way for me?”

“You know why – I’ve told you. You’re my best friend.”

“I know that. But to go so far… and I’ve only disappointed you by not remembering who you are. I’ve betrayed your friendship in that way.” Or what Chrom thought was their friendship.

A reassuring hand laid on Robin’s shoulder. “Robin. Listen to me. You haven’t betrayed anything – I came to Plegia because of our friendship, because I heard you were ill. If I see someone hurt or in need, I’m going to help them. That’s just who I am, and there’s no changing it.” A smile bloomed on Chrom’s lips as he continued. “I… I care deeply for you, Robin. I hope that answers why I ran across the desert like a madman.”

“Chrom… thank you. I don’t know how else to respond to that,” the tactician replied. He could feel his cheeks reddening. “Though bear in mind, chivalry and longevity don’t often go hand in hand.”

“Hah, I’ve heard as such from Frederick,” Chrom said.

But something felt odd about what he’d just told him. _Chivalry and longevity don’t often go hand in hand._ The phrase felt familiar on his lips, as if he’d made the admonition before, as if he’d spoken the same way in another life.

He looked up at Chrom with wide, tawny eyes.

“Robin? What is it?”

A thin-pressed smile. “Oh… nothing. Really.”

Chrom settled back with his weight on one leg and his hands laying loosely on his hips. “We’ll see each other soon enough, anyway. Your father extended an invitation to the wedding.”

The wedding. Two more months and it would be upon them. “Oh… yes.”

“How do you feel about it?”

Robin’s gaze shifted to the floor. He still wasn’t sure how he felt about his betrothal to Tharja, though speaking with her gave him at least a little more insight on the match. It was, without a doubt, a ploy on Validar’s part to unite the country’s most powerful sorceress and its fellblood heir. The specific political gains that resulted from this still eluded Tharja and Robin both.

As for Tharja herself, he finally came to the conclusion that she was certainly creepy, but mostly misguided. If she had any ulterior motives, it was only her obsession with him. Her keen observation was helpful in understanding the goings-on of the palace, at least – though she had a calm acceptance of the mystery of Robin’s lost memory, and knew nothing of what the exact outcome of Validar’s agenda to resurrect Grima was.

What she did know was invaluable to Robin’s understanding of his new world. Plegia, their homeland, was established by the Grimleal, a religious sect that worshiped the Fell Dragon Grima. Robin was Grimleal, but more importantly he was a fellblood Grimleal – one of royal lineage, destined to resurrect the Fell Dragon.

Even Tharja had the impression that summoning Grima into this world bode ill for its people. She told him the same thing about the deity Validar had: despair and ruin and annihilation. That was the Fell Dragon. It was a deity that knew nothing of peace, only chaos and destruction. There was a reason Chrom’s ancestors put it into a millennial slumber, after all.

He chalked it up to being a consequence of Tharja’s eccentricity, but she didn’t seem to mind the sinister atmosphere that surrounded it all.

Robin did mind.

He couldn’t let the Fell Dragon be resurrected. More than an issue of the likely consequences of reviving the embodiment of terror, more than an issue of the ethics of stealing the Fire Emblem from its home country, there was something deep within Robin that fought against it. It tugged at his core, something warm and bright. Something like Chrom.

He would marry Tharja. He wasn’t in love with her – gods no – but if he was to remain in Plegia and prevent Validar’s scheme, fulfilling his betrothal was necessary to resolving the issue from the inside out.

“Robin…?” Chrom leaned to get a better look at his expression. “You’re frowning. You aren’t having second thoughts, are you?”

Robin laughed it off. “I was just thinking about it, how strange it was to wake up and suddenly be engaged. It was my father’s matchmaking,” he explained. “I don’t have much of a say in my partner. But love can be learned, I suppose. We’ll make the most of it.”

“That’s a positive way to look at it. I’m glad you’re on good terms with your marriage.”

His words sounded heavy, forced. Robin didn’t say anything about it.

A moment of silence passed, albeit awkwardly, until Frederick and Sumia joined them, both walking their mounts from the stables. “Milord,” Frederick greeted. “The supplies have been packed. His Highness was kind enough to grant us provisions for the home journey.”

“…Not my father, but me,” Robin added with a smirk. “I hope that you arrive home safely, so I may see you again in a few months.”

“Th-thank you. I’ll certainly return – don’t worry,” Chrom replied, a bright pink flashing on his cheeks. It was the first time Robin had seen him truly flustered, he realized. “It’ll be a long two months, but we’ll see each other soon enough.”

Something caught in Robin’s chest, the words he couldn’t quite speak.

_I’ll miss you._

Why?

_You’re my only friend._

Pathetic. At least that’s what his father would tell him. It was pitiful that he’d befriended the Ylissian heir and fooled himself into discovering this invisible bond with him.

He couldn’t explain what it was he felt for Chrom, but it was _there,_ the force that tugged at his core towards his friend and his homeland in the east.

He had to protect him.

“Farewell,” he told him. “Until we meet again.”

The prince was ready to leave, but turned to Robin with a grin as lighthearted as the sky and pulled him into a quick embrace. “Yes,” he spoke into his ear. “Until we meet again.”

His touch lingered on Robin’s skin as the Plegian heir watched him walk away with the knights, squinting as his figure disappeared beyond the capitol and into the wastelands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and thus ends the first act. thanks for staying around this long! 
> 
> there's more in store for this fic still, but i'm putting it on hiatus for a little while :( on the bright side, the reason it's going on break is because I want to devote more time to another writing project - i'm contributing to an fe8 fan anthology! so if you like sacred stones, please stay tuned ~ thank you!


	11. shadow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY hiatus was so long ;; I'm back now and off of school, so hopefully I can make a lot more progress on this project...!
> 
> Also, it's important to note that I am officially in love with Shadows of Valentia oh my heck

Chrom dreamt of obsidian weddings and starless skies.

_This can’t be happening._

He rose early in the morning to escape the palace, as if the walls trapped him with his own thoughts.

_You can’t marry her._

It wasn’t unheard of for Chrom to spend his mornings out of the palace. After all, it was October, and autumn was fleeting. There was only so much time left of pleasant weather he could use as an excuse to stay outdoors until the first snows came from Ferox.

He always stayed out until he either exhausted himself or was caught neglecting his duties by Frederick, but the knight had yet to chase him down today. So he ran. Most days he took an iron sword and trained, but he’d come to find that sticking to one place and pretending to fight didn’t offer the escapism he longed for. Running was better. Running let him lose himself in the Ylissian plains, in the dry air and tall grasses and subtle grey skies.

_You can’t marry her._

_Please._

Chrom smiled. He could _try_ to lose himself in the wilderness, but there was no mistaking what happened, no removing it from his memory. He’s seen it with his own eyes.

_Please don’t leave me._

How many times had some poor person thought that at a wedding?

In hindsight, he wasn’t sure what he was expecting. He’d hardly seen Robin at all in the commotion of the ceremony. Royal weddings couldn’t possibly be an intimate affair, with noblemen and diplomats flocking to the event to gain the respect of the future leaders.

When he finally saw his friend, it was when he stood at the altar awaiting his bride, and he looked beautiful.

The traditional Plegian robes he wore were of the finest ebony fabric, the same kind worn by Tharja when she appeared in the cathedral. He’d since forgotten why black was the holy color of the Grimleal. Perhaps it was the color of the earth, or of devotion, or of destiny… but did that matter? The only thing the wedding attire really meant was that Robin was marrying someone else.

Robin never made eye contact with him in the audience, but Chrom wasn’t sure what he’d do if he had. He simply focused on the task at hand, reciting the vows without the slightest of smiles.

He wasn’t happy.

“Chrom?” Lissa whispered from beside him. “Are you alright? You look like you need water or something… I’m sure Robin wouldn’t mind if you stepped out.”

“I’m fine,” he lied. He missed Robin’s smile. And given the circumstances, he wasn’t sure if he’d ever see it again.

A dispassionate marriage and an unrequited love – what an incredibly unfortunate affair.

He stopped running, slowing down to catch his breath beneath a brown-leaved tree.

It was so damn _lonely._

In a faraway land, an enigmatic prince held his heart and didn’t even know. He’d come so close to revealing it, so close to rekindling their bond and confessing to Robin the feelings he’d held for so long now, and yet circumstance separated them again and again and again. There wasn’t any happiness that came out of falling in love with a foreign prince who was betrothed to a noblewoman and didn’t even remember who you were.

Such was Chrom’s fate.

He leaned against the tree. He could smell the humidity in the air – rain would come soon, and he would be stuck out here.  Frederick would lose his mind when he finally returned to the palace, drenched to the bone – Lissa and Emmeryn too, no doubt.

He shut his eyes gently, and wished for the thousandth time that Robin was there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHROM


	12. as the moon cannot leave the star

Robin dreamt of blood and thunder.

He jolted awake, sitting up in bed with vague flashes of terror haunting his mind. Dawn hadn’t risen yet. Neither had Tharja – a night owl by nature, she seldom crawled out of bed before mid-morning. She continued to sleep soundly through Robin’s panic.

It was annoying, really, that every so often he’d wake in a cold sweat like this. He could never recall the finer details of the dreams, only that they were terribly frightening and, as of late, occurring with greater frequency. Every other morning was an episode: he’d suddenly wake and fling himself upright, nausea gripping his stomach. The entire world felt warm – _fevered_ – and he had to hold his head in trembling hands to try and ease his frantic breathing. His hair was limp and sweaty between his fingers.

Another moment passed, and Robin finally caught his breath. Did this occur before his amnesia, too? There wasn’t anyone he could ask. And it didn’t really matter now, not with all the other things he had to attend to as prince.

Namely, Grima.

It was October, and his father still anticipated his formulation of a scheme to manipulate House Ylisse into handing over the Fire Emblem. Robin, however, still couldn’t find it in his heart to betray the trust Chrom placed on him.

The last time they saw each other, however, Chrom was unhappy.

It was at his and Tharja’s wedding. As an expected gesture of diplomacy, the nobles of House Ylisse were invited, but only the prince and princess made their appearance at the ceremony. The exalt, Emmeryn, stayed behind to tend to the state. While it seemed to bother Validar that the ruler of Ylisse opted to send her siblings in her stead rather than travel to Plegia herself, Robin didn’t care. He’d only wanted to see his friend again, even if using a formal event as an excuse.

In preparation for the ceremony, he was pulled every which way by servants and didn’t see much of anyone else. And when he finally appeared before the audience in the cathedral, there were only three faces in the crowd he recognized effortlessly.

In the first row sat a tall, gaunt-faced man and beside him, a smaller silver-haired woman. Validar and Aversa.

He’d only gotten to meet the latter of the two in the past month or so, when she returned from an expedition to Valm, but she was introduced to Robin as his sister. The resemblance was enough to convince him: the contrast of cold, pale hair against warm brown skin matched his own. It was the finer details of Aversa’s appearance that set her apart. She was overall sharper than he was, with striking curves and resting bitch-face that intimidated most everyone in the castle. Including Robin.

A few rows behind them, Robin found his blue-eyed friend. It had been so long since they last met, and seeing that friendly face made him feel altogether better than seeing his father and sister had. He had to repress the urge to leave the altar for a reunion.

Chrom appeared healthy as always, smiling as he spoke to the petite blonde beside him – she must have been Lissa, the enthusiastic younger sister he’d heard so much about. They were certainly closer than him and Aversa.

“Your highness, please stand closer to the altar,” the priest muttered.

He frowned. For perhaps a second, he’d forgotten he was at his own wedding.

Not that… not that he particularly cared. He was just going along with what his father told him to do. There wasn’t much use in fighting the arrangement when he was still in the process of figuring out the details of his world. Greater issues were at hand.

But when he caught a glimpse of Chrom again, he could tell something was upsetting him.

The gentle smile he wore when speaking to Lissa had fallen away, replaced by a grimace. He shifted uncomfortably in his place and tugged at the collar of his dress coat. The natural rosiness of his cheeks disappeared.

The prince, it seemed, desired to be anywhere that wasn’t _here_.

Why?

Perhaps he’d fallen ill, but that didn’t make sense in such a short time. Did Lissa say something that irked him? That didn’t make sense either.

The ceremony began, and Robin performed all the rites just as he practiced them. It quickly became a blurry, a methodical affair: he did this ritual and Tharja said those words and suddenly there they were, man and wife, in front of a cheering audience.

He wasn’t sure how he imagined a proper marriage of love was like, but certainly there was some sort of amiability in the minds of the bride and groom. Some shared sense of the devotion and felicity that marriage stood for, or something.

He didn’t dislike Tharja, but he was not in love. She knew this.

And so on his mind was not the woman before him, but a concern for the undeniably forlorn prince sitting in the audience.

He made it a point to seek Chrom after the ceremony concluded. In true Archanean fashion, a ball was held afterward in the great courtyard of castle Plegia, under the stars. Lamplight illuminated the dance floor where the full moon wasn’t enough – there were plenty of mages on staff for it to not be impractical.

Tharja caught him before he could sneak into the crowd.

Her gown was a deep ebony like her hair, like the space between the stars. But her eyes, normally lightless, shone with a quiet eagerness that he’d never seen before.

“I’d like you to dance with me,” she said simply.

Robin swallowed. He couldn’t turn down his bride – his _wife_ – and needed to make himself used to it anyway. He forced a smile. “It would be my pleasure.”

Something felt different about Tharja as he took her by the hand and whisked her onto the dance floor. What it was, he couldn’t quite name. There was something _lighter_ about her today. She wasn’t exactly the image of a blushing bride, but the foreboding countenance she normally wore had disappeared.

“You, um… Tharja, I think you look rather nice today,” he said.

She looked to him at smiled. “…It is my wedding day, after all…”

Never before had he seen her so… happy.

“I’m glad, then.”  He spun her around, just as they’d practiced in the weeks leading up to the ceremony. “I can tell you’re on good terms with it.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“It’s just… In an arranged marriage, there isn’t much time during the engagement…”

She chuckled. “…You made me love you, nonetheless… I’ve been looking forward to this moment for longer than you know…”

Robin didn’t reply to her until the music stopped.

“…Ah! Tharja, I’m sorry,” Robin said. “Khan Basilio asked for me to meet with him after the ceremony – I’m sure he wants to speak with me about something important. I’m off to go find him.”

She caught him by the arm before he could leave. “…Promise you’ll return to me,” she told him.

“Of course.”

Poor Tharja. He hadn’t been talking about her, but about himself. In what little time they did have before the wedding, he hadn’t exactly made it a priority to get to know his fiancée. He regrettably failed to learn to love him as she… she… well, everyone had a unique way of showing their affection, he decided.

As Robin walked away from her, he mentally reprimanded himself for telling such a blatant lie. He’d never met the Khan – he didn’t even know what the man looked like. He was only scrambling for an excuse to leave.

He needed to find Chrom.

He weaved in and out of the crowd, avoiding dancers as the band started up again with another waltz. Surely he was still here – he caught a glimpse of Lissa on the dancefloor, in the arms of a dark-haired Feroxi man. So Chrom… was he dancing too? There was likely a line of women waiting to be the prince’s partner. He was around here somewhere… somewhere…

Robin reached the other side of the courtyard, and though he’d nearly stepped on six feet and had to apologize for bumping into one grumpy nobleman, he hadn’t seen his friend at all. He crossed his arms and sighed. Where on earth was he? It couldn’t be easy for him to hide – he was both taller and broader than Robin was, not to mention a little clumsy at times, and his voice tended to be a bit on the loud side…

So if he wasn’t in the courtyard with everyone else…

After ensuring no one was paying too much attention to him, Robin slipped away from the dance and back into the palace.

He walked briskly through the halls, or as briskly as he could while wearing his gods-forsaken wedding clothes. Chrom had spent two weeks here in the summer. He knew where most things were in Castle Plegia, at least what would be relevant to a guest. If he needed a space to breathe amid the chaos of the wedding, he could get there.

As Robin anticipated, he’d gone out behind the palace, to the stables.

The moonlit yard was silent, save for Chrom grunting under his breath as he practiced swordplay. Did he go anywhere without his weapon? It was unsurprising for him to blow off steam like this, though. He was the type who would always prefer swinging a sword to sitting still through a ceremony.

“You’re awfully close to the stables,” Robin said as he approached, breaking the silence. “Are you sure you won’t spook the horses?”

Chrom halted mid-thrust, nearly dropping the Falchion as he turned to face him. His eyes were wide. “R-robin! I… Um…”

Robin laughed. “Did you think I’d be upset with you for leaving the ball? Knowing your nature, I’d be worried if you _didn’t_ leave early.”

“Heh. I guess you’re right. I… I didn’t think I’d get to speak to you, really.”

“I’m sorry about that. As it turns out, weddings aren’t exactly lax affairs.” He cracked a smile. “But I wanted to see you, Chrom. I missed you after you left.”

“Really?”

“Really? Of course! We’re friends… I guess an apology is due on my part, actually. I turned you away when you told me that we’d been friends since we were young, but now I think… I believe you, Chrom. I don’t doubt that we knew each other before this, and I’m sorry I forgot.”

“Robin…” Chrom sighed, and a bittersweet smile crossed his lips. “It’s not your fault. But where did this come from?”

“I… like I said, I missed you tremendously. I guess missing my closest friend made me realize that there’s more to our relationship than what I thought.”

“What about Tharja?”

“What about her?”

“I would think, with the wedding and all, you would grow closer to her…”

“You make it sound like I might use her to replace you.”

But the way Chrom’s eyes shifted to the ground, it was clear that the marriage had drawn some sort of line between them. The vibrancy Robin normally recognized him by was gone.

Was that why he left?

“There isn’t anyone else who could be my friend like you are –”

“It’s not about that,” Chrom interrupted. “It’s… Robin, are you happy? Are you happy marrying her?”

He swallowed. He couldn’t explain to Chrom everything behind his decision to go through with the wedding, not now. “I’m willing to make it work out, even if it’s an arranged match.”

“…I understand.”

But a question still burned in his cold blue eyes.

“I wish you the best with your marriage.”

“Chrom…”

The prince smiled and gave Robin a warm pat on the back. “Go on, now. You can’t leave your wife alone out there, can you? I promise I’ll join the party again soon. Go. Go have a good time.”

“Um…? Haha, okay then. I’ll see you soon, Chrom.” And so Robin turned around and left to return to the courtyard.

Chrom, the liar, never rejoined the celebration.

Robin never got the chance to see him again before he returned to Ylisse. He never even had the chance to ask how he was doing, how his sisters were, what Frederick and Sumia were up to.

He wondered.

The morning sun was beginning to creep into the bedroom, falling on the body of his wife asleep beside him. She didn’t look nearly as ghastly when unconscious as she did when awake. But other than that… he didn’t feel much about seeing the same person every morning.

_Chrom._

A month of marriage, and love still had yet to blossom. Unfortunately, he wasn’t surprised.

_Chrom. I didn’t answer you honestly back then._

_I’m not happy._

Robin decided to slip out of bed before she could wake up.


	13. the truth untold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI GUYS I'M BACK! :o For anyone still following this story, sorry for the long hiatus. School got pretty busy, and last semester my mental and physical health got really bad. But I'm doing better now! And I hope I can return to writing fic on a semi-regular basis. (Still in school tho rip) Honestly looking back on this fic I don't like all of what I've written so far, but I think I know where I want the story to end up. :)  
> Anyways, thank you to any old readers for sticking around, and thank you to new readers for checking this out!
> 
> (also not that anyone cares bUT chapter title is from a bts song but rlly check out takeuchi miyu's cover of it, it's what made me fall in love with it)

Chrom and Robin did not meet again for another three years.

Chrom understood. Well, part of him did. The rational side of him knew that they were adults now, adults of noble lineage who had countless responsibilities on their shoulders. There just wasn’t enough time to spend summers together. Even if Chrom was still laying around the palace bored out of his mind – playing army commander during a period of peace wasn’t the most eventful job – Robin undoubtedly had his hands full all the time now.

He didn’t know of this by speculation alone. After the wedding, Chrom received a letter from Plegia. Written in it was a simple request:

_“Dear Chrom,_

_I hope you are well. I decided to write to you because I feel that as friends, we should exchange letters with each other. Please respond if you would like to do so._

_– Robin”_

Chrom hesitated in drafting a response. _Friends._ Did corresponding with Robin even matter if it was only ever going to be of friendship? It did, Chrom knew that it did and that he valued Robin’s friendship and that he would accept that over not speaking to him at all. But he had only just recently unpacked from his return to Ylissitol. Memories of the wedding were fresh. They still stung.

He considered asking Emmeryn or Frederick for insight on the matter, but he knew what they would say. And so he, after having Robin’s letter in his possession for a week, wrote up a letter to be sent off the next morning.

_“Dear Robin,_

_Thank you for your letter. I’m happy to hear from you again. We used to exchange letters like this whenever you weren’t visiting in Ylisse. For me, corresponding with each other feels like how things used to be._

_As for me, I would say I am doing well. I’ve been back in Ylissitol for two weeks now and not much has happened. I decided to try and read a little more often, like you do, but it isn’t going too well so far. I haven’t finished a book yet. The only exciting thing around here is that Lissa adopted a stray dog, but she’s been keeping her in the stables because Emmeryn is allergic._

_How are things on your end? I hope to hear from you soon._

_Best, Chrom”_

He looked over the letter only once before sealing it. There were places he could elaborate – especially regarding his feelings on letter-writing – but he didn’t want to be too forward with Robin. He might make him uncomfortable. And, of course, there was the issue that his grammar and etiquette were likely sub-par, but these weren’t formal letters. Robin usually didn’t seem to care about such things, anyway.

Their correspondence was more regular and prompt afterward, letters coming in and out of the palace nearly as fast as Chrom could write them and pegasi could transport them. Hearing news from Robin, seeing his neat handwriting down the page, put a smile on Chrom’s lips whenever he opened an envelope.

Less than a year into their correspondence, Robin wrote to Chrom that he and Tharja were expecting their first child.

Chrom’s stomach dropped.

 _“But I can’t help but feel… odd about the whole occasion,”_ Robin explained. _“Father seems to be pleased with having an heir. Tharja is ecstatic. But I don’t know quite how to feel. I never imagined having a child with Tharja. I’ve gotten to know her better as time has gone on, but I honestly can’t say that what I feel towards her is love. Please keep this between you and me.”_

Chrom felt a little more at ease.

Not that he was expecting Robin in Tharja to fall into a passionate romance, being an arranged match, but it gave him a sliver of hope. If he was competing for Robin’s heart, then knowing that Tharja _wasn’t_ his soulmate gave him at least a small chance.

When the baby was born, however, the ache set right back in, even more intense than before.

_“We’ve decided to name her Morgan, after the sorceress of legend. She is a beautiful little girl, Chrom. I hope you can meet her sometime. She has bright brown eyes and a cheerful smile. I don’t know when I last heard laughter in the palace, before Morgan came along, anyway.”_

Robin did have someone he loved. Granted, this wasn’t a romantic love, but it reminded Chrom that Robin and Tharja’s marriage was not a hoax. They were not pretending to be husband and wife. Perhaps Robin didn’t love his wife outright, but he loved her enough to consummate their marriage. To have a child together. To love and care for their child.

It hurt, it hurt, it hurt. He knew that he was jealous of an infant. He knew it was ridiculous, and he should just be happy for his friend. It still hurt.

Such was the fate of settling for being “just friends” with the one you loved.

Chrom continued writing. The pain was still with him, but it grew bearable with time. Even if he couldn’t see Robin, even if they couldn’t return to how their relationship was in their youth, Chrom decided that he was happy knowing that Robin was happy.

It was another wedding that finally brought them together again. Three years after Robin and Tharja were wed, Lissa became engaged to Lon’qu, a swordsman in the service of Khan Basilio. Chrom didn’t waste any time in extending an invitation to Robin. And Robin’s family, of course, though Chrom secretly hoped that Validar and Tharja didn’t show up.

But that was no way to think of his little sister’s wedding day. He didn’t want to be selfish when it came to all of this.

Emmeryn caught him on his way to give an invitation to the royal courier.

“Chrom,” she asked, “is that another letter you’re sending?”

Chrom stopped walking and held the envelope up so she could see. “Um, yes. But really it’s an invitation to Lissa’s wedding I’m sending off.”

“To Robin?”

“Yes.” He prayed his cheeks didn’t look as warm as they felt.

“…I’ve noticed that the two of you have been writing quite frequently.”

“Naturally. We’re friends, after all.”

Emmeryn clasped her hands together, a knowing look in her eyes. “Chrom, forgive me for asking, but… just what are your feelings towards Robin?”

“What? What do you mean?” But there was no use trying to hide anything from his older sister. Growing up, she could tell just by the look on his face if Chrom had broken something while playing or stolen sweets from the kitchen. Her perception hadn’t gone away with age. If anything, it must have grown stronger.

“I noticed when he fell ill, and you rushed to his side. Chrom, the way that you speak of him, the way you seem so devoted… I think that what you feel for him is more than friendship.”

“Well, what does it matter if I’m in love? Why bring that up now?”

“It matters because he is _married,_ Chrom. I’ve only decided to say something because I care for you.”

“I know that he’s married.” Chrom shifted his feet. “I know that. That’s… that’s why it doesn’t matter that I’m in love. It’s unrequited.”

“…Chrom, when I tell you that I care for you, I say so meaning that I care for your happiness. You aren’t happy watching him from afar.”

He said nothing in response.

“I would love for you to continue being friends with Robin. But I think it may be best that you move on.”

Chrom sighed. “I think I am in the process of that.” And so he continued on his way to send his invitation.

He didn’t care that Emmeryn knew. If anyone was going to find out, it was going to be her. And Chrom knew that she really was well-intentioned in confronting him about the matter. Perhaps it was time to move on, to find someone else and get married himself. Even Frederick pointed out that it was a bit odd that it was the youngest of the royal family who was first to be wed.

But simply moving on when Robin’s name was still written on his heart was impossible. Perhaps it would be better if he had lost his memory, too. Then neither of them would hold the pain of what could have been.


End file.
